 photo by steed media service
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Author, Brianna’s Neighborhood series
While
growing up in Brooklyn’s diverse Clinton Hill neighborhood, Sahar
Simmons’ childhood was far from the idyllic scenarios found in
most children’s books. Her parents had divorced and her
grandmother moved in to lend a hand. Simmons would later lean on her
childhood experiences as the inspiration to change the face of
children’s literature.
Simmons decided to base her children’s book series, Brianna’s Neighborhood,
on her own childhood in oder to create a character whom young girls
could identify with. Brianna, the book’s 8-year-old heroine,
encounters issues and situations that affect many of today’s
children, such as self-esteem, peer pressure and puberty.
“I
wanted to create a character that many young girls could look up to and
connect with as a role model. You don’t really see a lot of
situations like hers in children’s books. I look at her [Brianna]
as a … mentoring tool for young girls,” Simmons explains.
Although
her background is in sports marketing, Simmons felt compelled to tell
Brianna’s story in hopes of reviving reading among tech-savvy
youth. “I wanted to bring excitement back to literacy because
this is such a technologically driven age … I wanted to [introduce] a
character that was entertaining and intelligent and made kids want to
read her story and be a part of her life,” she says.
So far the response to the series’ first two installments, All About Me and Boys Will Be
Boys,
has reaffirmed Simmons’ aspirations to provide today’s
girls with a positive role model. “I didn’t know how it was
going to be received,” admits Simmons. “But it had such an
overwhelming and positive impact that I realized I had something really
big.”
–ivory m. jones
